welcome to '08...a bit late i know!

Maybe I should change the URL to '08 now, meh.
Anyway back in germany now. Had my 21st end of jan, nothing much. Went to work 9-8, came home and opened some pressents I'd been mailed. The on the saturday went to a famous local brewery with Sven and Max (Max has moved in the room next to me, an old friend of Sven and seems nice).
Finally bothered to get visual studio 2008 from the uni site, installed that and have been doing some on my uni project. some will be glad to hear I've been trying to stop playing wow. Been off it since the 21st, where I only went on to check in-game mail.

Erm, other than that a tutor from uni came over yesterday and we had meetings about how it was going. Personally I couldn't think of a better way to of spent this year; though the house is horrible.

Heather comes in 2weeks and I can't wait, we'll be going to munich and places so will be lots of things to put in my next post, along with pics.

family get-together

4th of Jan is Heather's birthday and after a year of being together our parents had not met each other. Therefore, as a birthday celebration we all went to Tiggis (a pizzeria in St. Annes) there were: 4 parents, Heather's 2 sisters, my sister+step-sister, then my gran+step-grandfather.
The Watsons at one end, Turners at the other with me a Heather in the middle. Families only seemed to talk within themselves for the most of it, but the food was nice and at times the conversation reached the length of the table. That night I was given my 21st present from my dad+Jane: 2 tickets to Dublin with hotel for Friday and Saturday nights with €500 to spend.

The next weekend was my last at home, or so I thought; so on the friday we left for Blackpool airport for 12 and got to the hotel for about 5. That evening we looked round some of the shops on our street, temple bar, before heading to an Italian we had seen on a side street; the pizza wasn't the best, but filled a hole. After we went to a cocktail bar named thunderroad opposite the hotel, I rarely have anything more than a beer so stared at the menu not knowing where to start taste-wise. I ended up with Caipirinha, the Brazilian national drink apparently. Was very bitter, with a strong kick. That night we went to bed quite early - about 10 I think.
Saturday came and our full day in Dublin, we'd looked through the guide book and the only thing that held interest was the national history museum. So headed off into the city in the general direction, Heather pulling me in as many shops as possible as she'd not decided what she wanted for her birthday, so I hadn't bought anything.
The museum had the different ages: from hordes of gold and possessions which were left in little troughs in the ground, to viking ships and swords, to dinosaurs and ancient Egypt (for no reason clear to me at all). As usual, the mass majority of things nicely made were religious and as such not worth the time to look; however Heather seemed mostly interested in the Egyptian section. I bought her a sarcophagus souvenir thing, with much moaning before and after about how she wanted something Egyptian from the Irish history museum.
Heather had seen some DKNY perfume she wanted, which I ended up smelling in at least 5 shops, I think she was hinting to me to buy it there. Although we were only allowed liquid-restricted handlugage on the plane home. The rest of the day was spent going in and out of endless shops, we ended up buying 3 DVDs (shooter, epic movie and employee of the month) all of which were watched on Sunday night; a new top and pair of boots were also bought along with a hard rock café Dublin top after our meal that night. It started raining late afternoon and as such that night we daren't venture far. The hard rock café was 3 or 4 doors down the road from our hotel and Heather hadn't been in one before, so about 7.30 we sat down to eat there. I ordered some fajitas which came on a large plate with a grill pot, which caused Heather must amusement as I tried to cram as much into the wraps without splitting them as possible. After we ended up in the cocktail bar from the night before, how adventurous of us!
Sunday we got up late, I finally persuaded Heather to come for some breakfast before checking out and going to the airport. The flight was very turbulent, not good for Heather's 3rd ever flight; the small 737 was getting pushed up and down all the way with the landing on the cracked tarmacked runway at Blackpool interesting.

Monday I went for lunch at pizza hut, the all you can eat buffet, though I felt a bit off after 6 slices, a 3rd of my usual amount. I'd finished packing in the morning ready for my flight back to Stuttgart, then adding a block of cheese and sorting out the weight after eating. At 5 we set off for Preston, then going on to Manchester. Heather came with us and seemed to have just as much as me in the boot of clothes she'd dumped in my room and was now needing to take home.
The flight home didn't feel too long and landing in Stuttgart 20min early I had high hopes for catching the last train 40minutes later. However it was not to be, my bag was last out, I walked to the wrong end of the platform in the underground for my train transfer and as such ended up having to wait till 4.30am. I read a book cover to cover and started a new 1 "Avoid Boring People" by James D Watson, autobiography of the co-finder of the double-helix, not my usual read but is interesting and gives a clear picture of his road to success, along with lessons learnt.
I finally got back to my flat in Augsburg for 7 then left for work 30min later.
I used some of the pro plus I had left in my desk from boosting my early mornings when I started in August, and was surprisingly energetic after 30hours without sleep. People at work asked about my leg and how my Christmas was (it's bad and was nice, if you were going to ask) by 4 I was ready to go home though but gave up on having an early night. Wednesday I got to work late, 10.30 but stayed till 7.15 to make up my hours. I have 1 days holiday left with Heather planning a 10day holiday in April, 4hours/week overtime shouldn't be too hard if I stay disciplined. When I got home I felt like going to the gym, but instead went out with Sven and a couple of his friends, 3 I'd met before and 2 were new, including a guy called Maxi who's living next door to me now. I found myself looking at a cocktail menu again in the pub in the town hall, not knowing what I wanted, I ended up with something containing lime and SoCo.
As a joke from Louise I had received a "panic button" which when pressed brings up a screenshot of some work. I have a nickname of Mr. Times at work as I constantly get bored and search the newspaper's site, so this was an ideal gift to take into work for a joke about my laziness. Now that it's installed though, the Frenchman next to me has nicked it and presses it at the most inappropriate times as I am actually doing work.